Half-Life 2 simply received a patch that fixes a progress-blocking teleporter bug and makes a practice simpler to race
Final yr, Valve introduced the unique growth workforce again collectively for a twentieth anniversary Half-Life 2 replace. It built-in the post-launch episodes, added a brand new developer commentary observe, introduced in Steam Workshop assist, and added a heap of map and gameplay updates. All of which was nice—aside from one progress-blocking bug it launched to the Entanglement stage.
Close to the top of Entanglement there is a setpiece the place you utilize turrets to defend Alyx whereas she resets a teleporter, then bounce in together with her to flee the waves of Mix troopers flooding in. Which labored superb, till the anniversary version. Probably because of stated replace fixing an current bug that would make the teleporter go away early, a brand new bug meant that generally you would not be capable of enter the teleporter after Alyx—and if you happen to raced to get inside first, she would not observe you.
Ingenious options to this downside concerned leaping onto Alyx’s head, maybe by dropping a grenade at your toes or leaping off one of many turrets. Now, you will not should do both—or open up the console and fiddle with cheats—because the newest patch ought to have the sequence working as supposed as soon as once more. It additionally prevents enemies from with the ability to shoot by way of a few of the stage’s partitions.
The opposite change on this replace is a tweak to the practice setpiece on Freeway 17. The place initially, when confronted with an oncoming practice whereas driving the buggy, you had a alternative between reversing the hell out of there or flooring it and escaping by way of a niche between it and one other practice (or dismounting the car totally, if you happen to’re a buggy-hater). Profitable the race turned a lot tougher when the muscle-car physics from Episode Two had been retroactively utilized to the buggy.
This one wasn’t really all the way down to the anniversary replace, however an earlier patch. In case you performed Half-Life 2 at launch you in all probability discovered it simple to beat the practice, however after it was patched you wanted to be on-point along with your boosting to face an opportunity. Now Valve has “Restored pace of the practice close to the top of Freeway 17 to higher match the unique shipped issue.”
I feel Half-Life 2 remains to be one of many finest first-person shooters round, although whether or not that is as a result of it is a timeless basic or as a result of it is all been downhill since then is a matter of how cynical I really feel on any given day. Nonetheless, good to have an excuse to replay it once more.
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